In turbid water, a viewer typically sees nothing but a brown haze of silt, organic debris, or mud. Turbid water can be ubiquitous in such places as inland water ways, coastal shorelines, shipyards and construction sites, a sea floor experiencing storm action, archeological digs, the roiling bottom of the Mississippi River, industrial vats of water waste, or working conduits transferring opaque liquid, smoke, or other visibility-impairing gasses, foaming or sudsy liquids, etc. Turbid water can also be caused simply by a diver's movement, the churning up the silted sea bottom by an ROV in the normal course of doing work on the bottom or the disturbance of settled silt on underwater trees being harvested. For the diver in bio-hazardous or cold conditions, his or her only other input, the sense of touch while wearing gloves, is very limited at best. The quality of work may suffer, production may be slowed, and the diver's well-being may be endangered if the skin is exposed while attempting to closely examine a damaged bulkhead or corroded surface or perform an inspection. For a system utilizing an ROV which relies on a video camera for acquiring information, there is no alternative image acquisition in turbid water except SONAR and thermal imaging, neither of which have the color sense or the close-up resolution advantages of video.
A way of seeing through turbidity is to use a hydraulic system to displace the turbidity with an illuminated laminar flow or low turbulent jet stream of clear water through which, for example, a diver or video system can view the work or target area. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,900,954, the relevant portions of which are herein incorporated by reference.
This disclosure describes an enhancing viewing apparatus for use in visibility-impairing fluid, such as turbid water or smoke, or the displacement of ambient gases with task-enhancing gases for welding purposes, for example. The apparatus provides a clear fluid stream to the viewing/work area. The stream's velocity profile minimizes turbulence at the boundary of the clear fluid stream and minimizes entrainment of the ambient turbid fluid into the clear fluid thereby providing a visibly clear media through which the area of interest may be viewed.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,900,954, The enhancing viewing apparatus may be mounted directly in a diver's line of view, such as on a helmet or mask, so that the diver (synonymous herein with “remote operator”) looks through a window in the rear of the enhancing viewing apparatus and along the axis of the jet.
The apparatus may be altered to include or add a video camera to replace the human eye, may also be hand-held and manipulated by the diver; or alternatively, manipulated while at the end of a pole. However, if equipped with a video camera, one shortcoming of the prior art system is that there is no provision for the remote operator to see in real-time what the camera sees.
Another shortcoming of the prior art system is that the enhancing viewing apparatus is provided with clear viewing fluid only through a hose connected to a surface fluid supply. Such a hose, which may be very lengthy for relatively deep diving conditions or caught in underwater obstacles, can be a serious impediment to a diver's freedom of movement.
Another shortcoming of the prior art system is that the video system operating the camera is not capable of any electronically sophisticated transmission or data manipulation, video formatting, or distribution.
Another shortcoming is that there is no means to set up, format, configure, reprogram or provide updates to the information displayed on the video screens.
What is needed is an integrated system that addresses all of these shortcomings plus additional features to make a complete turnkey system. This integrated system allows a diver to be able to see, in real time, a displayed processed video image captured by the camera; provides a diver with text, messaging, and/or graphical data information in a mask or helmet mounted display; allows a visually impaired viewing device to operate with or without a hose connection to the surface supplying clear water; allows a diver operational control of the SCS, system operations or that of an ROV over a digital communications channel; provides video-over-IP and allows text/graphics overlay all while providing bi-directional, digital voice, message, command and control communications between the diver and the operator of the SCS.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide improved diver capability, diver knowledge and situational awareness of real time events, communications, operational control of the system, video/audio-over-IP, clear water flow control to the VD, and data processing in all water conditions, especially turbid water conditions, while receiving the video/audio-over-IP stream from the RIPU, capturing the video for real-time, viewing, analysis, or historical records via the SCS or on the ROV.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a software user application that provides for the formatting of static and real-time operational data to be displayed on both the SCS and diver display, provides for the automatic software retrieval and reprogramming of both the SCS processing unit and the diver's remote information processing unit (RIPU), and provides for real-time text chatting with the remote diver or a plurality of divers.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a means of rapid inspection and viewing of large surface areas, such as bridge pillars, ship hulls or dam surfaces.